Kickin' It

After the show - happy chappiesKickin' It

Rockin' Out

Awesome night, and now we’re gearing up for Term 1, starting Feb 18th and Feb 21st (two programs per term from 2011 – Fridays and Monday nights!). Check us out more at www.rockstarexperience.com.au and get in now before the price rise on January 31st…

Checking out until Feb 2011…have a great Christmas and New Year, see you on the other side…

So where things are at with our members at this point…our junior band “Pocket Rocket” is powering along – this is made up of four very talented 18 year olds who have worked their butts off and have a great set lined up. We are also very grateful to Mark Cincotta, one of our previous members, who stepped in at the halfway point to take over the drums for this band. Thanks Mark! Progress has powered ahead with Mark’s assistance and we can’t wait to see these guys play live on the 5th. We’ve been so impressed with Alyce on guitar – for her age she is an outstanding guitarist. Her friend Zarina (lead vocals) is working hard on some very challenging vocal parts – even attempting a Kelly Clarkson track! Chloe, our repeat bass player just gets better and better, and Jake, the young lead guitarist is really an outstanding player. I have no hesitation in saying that I would have him in a band with me any day – he’s very talented and deserves to go far.

Our middle band, “Alcorox” is made up of older members, and they’re a really fun group. There’s Rob on guitar, who did our last program. His playing has gone from strength to strength, and he’s really benefitting from some extra-curricular lessons from Paul, Rockstar’s guitar coach. Sue on vocals is also a repeat member who is very experienced having played in other bands, plus she does a lot of work for choral groups as well. Catherine is a first timer on c0-lead vocals. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but she recently became a grandmother. As a singer, she has a really impressive low range, with a real bluesy quality. I’d really love to hear her do some Bonnie Raitt one of these days – her voice is perfect for it! James on bass has a very distinct style and is progressing beautifully with help from Daniel Lijnders, our bass coach. And finally, Chappy on drums has just turned 69! Chappy is a beautiful man who has put 150% into this experience. He’s listened to all the songs incessantly, has taken every bit of advice on board and his playing has advanced significantly as a result. He used to play (over 40 years ago!) in the Ernie Sigley showband, and we’re so excited to have him as part of Rockstar – he’s proof that age is no barrier to rocking out!

And finally, our more experienced members in “Shearwater” are doing an outstanding job with a really strong set list. We’re always rapt to work with solid musicians like Brad (Boofa) on guitar and Malcolm on bass, who have done all our programs so far. In addition we have Edie on vocals, another repeat member from term 2 this year, and the song choices are really working with her strengths this time around. Newcomers Andrew and Nick are also really solid players and we’ve loved getting to know them.

So we have just two rehearsals left and then the final show on the 5th…it always goes so quickly, and while it’s hard work, we always feel a little bit sad when it all finishes up. So I’m determined to savour all the moments of the next two weeks and can’t wait to see these three bands rock it out on stage…..if you can, join us on the 5th and see what we’re all about!

Ciao for now,

Leah

Rockstar will stay an exclusive program in 2011 – a maximum of 3 bands per round works perfectly and gives all participants the best chance of a challenging and inspiring experience. But we will be adding other goodies throughout the year – an annual “Rock Retreat” being one exciting new event. This will be a three day”lock-out” where participants will jam in day-long sessions, head out on the town to see bands and then perform in a massive jam night. Past Rockstar members will receive priority placement for this exciting long weekend and we can’t wait to get that going! More info to come…we’re also working on an after school program for secondary schools, so big things are happening in 2011!

Meanwhile, we’re focusing on getting our current members up to speed. Two of the three bands have decided on a name – we have “Alcorox” and “Shearwater” on board now. It always feels like things start to crystallise even more once the band names are decided – it’s like each band starts to take on its own distinct personality and the members start to gel with that feeling. Rehearsal 5 should be lots of fun with invitations set to go out for the final show in just 4 weeks’ time! Looking forward to coaching in the area of stage performance from here on – the hard work of determining set lists and learning songs is completed, now it’s time to start visualising that live show.

More to come after rehearsal 5, for now lots more work to do in pulling together our next exciting addition to what we do – a regular podcast that will interview leading musicians to get their story on how they started in the industry! More to come on that shortly….

Ciao for now

Each week band members suggest ideas for songs they’d like to try. Saturdays are spent sourcing those songs in MP3 format, finding guitar chord references for each of them and then charting them out in a consistent format for everyone to understand. Then Paul checks through them on Sunday and we send them off to everyone on Sunday night so they can rehearse for the following week. It’s a pretty time consuming process when you add in the marketing side of things – social media updates, photo and video uploads and even just writing this blog. So for the first few weeks of doing a new Rockstar program, weekends are kind of non-existent!

So it’s now just after 1pm on Saturday – after a quite intense rehearsal last night in warm weather, set up and pack up of 3 full band’s worth of equipment and working since 9am this morning I’m ready to collapse on the couch! Bring on next week when we can just sleep in after rehearsal

All the bands are doing well and their set lists are coming together. The “junior” band – only named this way because they’re all teenagers – are pulling together a really contemporary set including tracks from Paramore, Kelly Clarkson and A Simple Plan. It’s been great to have young members playing some really modern tracks and we can’t wait to see them perform live. Our “intermediate” band – a group of older members who’ve been playing only a short period of time – is working on a set of classic pop and rock charts including songs from U2, Bob Dylan and T-Rex. And our “pr0″ band – more experienced musos and some regular past Rockstar members – are rocking out to Divinyls, Cheap Trick, Hole and The Stones.

It’s important that we determine all their songs early so the mid-term can be spent perfecting them. Then we get onto the fun stuff, like deciding on band names, figuring out stage moves and pulling the performance aspect together. The intermediate band are already champing at the bit to come up with their identity – last night they decided on “The Alcorocks” – let’s see if that sticks!

So at week 3, things still feel a little unsure in terms of perfecting beginnings and endings, arrangements, harmonies etc. But we know it all comes together in the end…it always does!

We’ve posted some pics from last night on our website here:

http://www.rockstarexperience.com.au/latestNews.php?id=54

and on facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mordialloc-Australia/Rockstar-Experience/78077362321?ref=ts

Check them out and stay tuned for next week’s update…

Until then, ciao for now – and to the couch I go.

We were lucky to have stand-in coach Oliver Jones, an experienced musician and producer who looked after our junior band. He did a great job and even got the band together with the song “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty”, which we’d thought might need to be dropped! A big thank you to Oliver for coming in at the last minute. Being a Rockstar coach is a pretty big job and it takes a certain type of person to direct a whole band. We look forward to working more with Oliver in 2011.

Paul also had a challenge on his hands with guitarist Rob away for a work function. He played with the band throughout the night and coached at the same time. But we’d never expect any less from Paul – he’s the ultimate dedicated Rockstar coach. Some nice, complementary vocals coming through from Sue and Catherine – two very different voices that really work well together.

The pro band had a few awakenings with our decision to drop “Bring Me Some Water”, one of their new song suggestions from last week. Sometimes songs just don’t work, and we have to move on. Well done to everyone for recognising this and agreeing quickly and professionally to choose something else. Their developing set is really starting to rock, and we’re working on two newies for next week – Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Feel Like Makin’ Love – the Bad Company classic.

Next week we’ll also have some pics to display…

After a conversation with my sister, who suggested treating Rockstar more like a “weekly lesson” opportunity, something clicked. I re-formatted and finessed the offer, coming up with our current model. The new 8 week program focused on the stuff that really matters – playing, progressing and performing. We stripped back the price to a fraction of the original, knowing that it’s the playing that matters – not the bling of hotrods and makeovers.

I put it out there, did some Google Adwords, and before we knew it, we had enough people signed up to complete two full bands in our first proper course! Since then, we’ve completed that course and have just commenced our third (Term 4, 2010) with three full bands. A total of 6 members out of 16 are repeat participants, who signed up as soon as it was open for registration. We are so proud of what we’ve managed to achieve so far, and are even more excited about 2012. We’ve just announced that we are now open to younger students, with out teenage programs (ages 12 – 17) now available alongside our standard program.  

We can also chirp about some of the brilliant achievements from our ex-members.

Tony from our May 2010 band “Zero 2 Hero” bought a drum kit after completing the course. After a 30 year lay-off, he has now joined a 1950′s rock’n'roll band and his first gig is this month.

Ben from our May 2010 band “PlayBack” is in a band which is supporting Australian chart topper Michael Paynter this month.

And Cameron and Luke from our 2008 band “Payload” went on to form their own cover band “Stimulus Package”. In September 2010 they won the Melbourne “Calling All Coverbands” competition, and took home a $10,000 prize along with residency offers.

These are just some of the success stories and transformations we’ve achieved, and it’s all I ever wanted. So I guess that ends my history lesson, it feels good to have annotated everything we went through to get here! From here on in we’ll be reporting on the progress of our current members, who started their 8 week journey last Friday, October 15th.  Thanks for listening, and please, post comments!

The original concept of Rockstar was as a premium experience – we wanted to offer the 8 weeks of rehearsals with a live show in a major Melbourne club, makeovers, a limo ride to the show, pro photography and more. The price point was $1499. In early 2008 I decided that I wanted to (somehow!) get the program promoted on the Vega 91.5 breakfast show. The hosts were Ian Dickson (Dicko from Australian Idol), Dave O’Neil (Melbourne comedian) and Chrissie Swan (former Big Brother contestant and now co-host of TV show The Circle). I knew that Dave played bass guitar and my idea was to have Dave do the 8 week program and report back on his progress. A perfect example of manifestation, within a few weeks I had randomly taken a call at my full time job from an advertising exec at Vega. I called her back out of work hours to discuss Rockstar separately – she called me back a few days later saying that Dicko had seen the website, loved the concept and wanted to do something with us. Their idea was to have Chrissie do the program – not quite my original idea, but hey, I’d take it! They built a “story arc” around her experience, and built up to the final live performance.

The whole promotion was fantastic and of course very unique – we spent a serious amount of money on the program. We found ten amateur musicians and put them through the program at no charge. We paid for two brilliant additional coaches (who are still with us today – Daniel and Elyan), and accompanying radio advertising; and we received a lot of attention as a result. A major story on page 7 of The Age, a feature story on SBS World News, a news spot on 3AW – stuff you would kill for. A massive spike in web traffic resulted…and that was about it. No sign-ups, no waiting list…nothing. I was crushed. If you don’t get a result from that kind of exposure, your idea ain’t right! I reviewed and analysed and accepted. I came up with other ideas, none of which worked. By mid 2009 I had a lot of friends praising me for my persistence, and a debt of $80k. I knew that a lack of time and, even more importantly, ties to my job were stopping me from doing what I needed to do.  

It took a long time for me to realise that I had to let go – of the music products industry, of a traditional full time office job, of perceived security. Spiritual teachers and life coaches talk about “letting go” to achieve what you want – and let me tell you, actually doing it is bloody hard. But they’re right – there has to be a point where you trust yourself and your ideas enough to go for it. By the end of 2009 I had decided to let go, at least of the major things that were holding me back. We put the house up for sale (we weren’t really happy there anyway) and decided we would pay off the debt, rent for a while and see what happened. I left the full time marketing role, and took on an educational sales role for a wonderful publishing company – this allowed me to work from home, manage my own territory and time and most importantly, I was afforded much more time and energy to make Rockstar work. For a while, I really enjoyed what felt like a holiday from 20 years of 9-5 office life, and I took it pretty easy. Then early in 2010 I got another wake-up call, finding out I was pregnant for the first time. Although we hadn’t planned for it, we decided to give it a go, fearful and excited at the same time. Given the difficulties we’d had with Rockstar, we decided to shut down for a year at least. In my mind though, I felt like I had come to a cross-roads again and perhaps this was a sign that it was never going to work. I notified all the experience sites we partner with, I put notices on our website and got it into my head that Rockstar was done with for the long term. I was going to be a mother, and now was not the time to be taking financial risks on a struggling business.

We surprised friends and family with the news on my 40th birthday, and I’ll never forget how wonderful that experience was. I was fit, relatively healthy and looking forward to this life experience – the one they say is most life changing. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Just ten weeks later, on my Dad’s 70th birthday, a scan revealed I had miscarried. 

Next instalment: Understanding adversity

I knew it was time to go after six years when my manager advised that I should expect no autonomy in my role, and that I needed to be more aloof with my staff. I have never worked like that and I never will, and I realised that the time had come to move on. Making the decision broke my heart, but the pressures of the job had impacted on my life in many ways. I’m pleased to say that my team have also all moved on since then, each taking on wonderful roles where they are doing brilliantly. We all remain the closest of friends and I’m grateful to the business for making this happen. There were many things I learned in my time there, all impacting on how I now choose to live my life.

I moved into a retail marketing role in the same industry, for a wonderful traditional company who are also now at the top of their game in music products. The culture was so innately one of trust and responsibility – it took me a long time to trust myself and my decisions again, but this was ultimately the biggest gift of doing this role.  I would have to say that, during those three years, I grew more than I had in my previous 36 years! The Universe was speaking to me then – giving me lessons that I would need to have – in order to make Rockstar work. It would take pages and pages to list all the synchronistic happenings and beautiful coincidences that came together for me over this period of time – suffice to say, if you want to hear about it just ask me!

Over the next three years I continued to work on Rockstar when I could, but again I found the time demands were taking away from what I could achieve. We had thrown a lot of money into Rockstar and it was really doing nothing – partly because of time, and partly because there were conflicts with my full time role – I was limited in what I could do, because of some of the in-store programs that the business had invested in. I felt backed into a corner – I believed I needed the income from my full time role to pay the mortgage, but I also knew I wasn’t happy. Retail marketing wasn’t what I wanted to do. Despite my respect for management and how much they had given me, my body was hurting from being at a desk all day, I was pushing myself with 6am killer exercise sessions just to keep some semblance of fitness and I was dog tired all the time. And so I came to another decision point. When I look back, the moment I decided to jump was the moment that everything started to come together for Rockstar.

In the next instalment – a serious leap of faith

We start our next program this Friday the 15th October – this blog will follow the progress of our 12 members as they go through the 8 week course. With three full bands set to start rehearsing, we have a lot on our plates and we’re looking forward to reporting on our weekly challenges and achievements.

To start the blog, I thought I’d give you some background on how we started and where we’ve come from – warts and all! Nobody ever said starting a business was easy – let alone something as unique as Rockstar Experience. People don’t always “get it”, but when they do, we’re really proud of how exciting the idea is to people who’ve never had the chance to play in a band. Likewise, for musos who’ve played in bands in the past, we offer an opportunity to re-connect with like-minded players and form new connections for the future.

So, to go back, way back….

The concept of Rockstar Experience was born in mid 2006 when I was rehearsing to perform in a corporate battle of the bands called “Rock Inc”. The show was in aid of the Olivia Newton John cancer centre at the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, and I was invited to be part of “L’Austin Rock”, the band representing Austin Hospital. We would perform for Olivia, Jon Stevens and Brian Cadd, with an audience of more than 5000 people at Rod Laver Arena.

What an incredible experience this was, with our band putting in up to three rehearsals a week in the lead-up to the show. We did it all – vocal coaching, personal training and choreography in an all out attempt to absolutely kill it live. We ended up coming third and although we were pretty crushed to miss out on the top spot, so many great things came out of this experience; lifelong friendships, the chance to perform live in an iconic stadium and….Rockstar Experience. Seeing so many people from incredibly diverse corporate companies made me realise that musicians were everywhere – they just don’t always get the chance to play live! And so over the course of the next few months I started planning the Rockstar Experience concept.

In the next instalment: The lessons we would learn over the coming two years….